


stupid boy

by hereforthehurts



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Chinise cultural reference, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kya also adopts Mako, Lin Beifong adopts mako once again, Mako has two moms, Mako whump, Mako-centric, Momboss and Detectiveson, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sick Character, Sickfic, Suyin and Lin are good sisters, Vomiting, Whump, hurt mako, hurt!Mako - Freeform, wound infections
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-20 22:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30012228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereforthehurts/pseuds/hereforthehurts
Summary: Mako gets injured. Lin and Kya takes care of him.
Relationships: Lin Beifong & Mako, Lin Beifong & Suyin Beifong, Lin Beifong/Kya II
Comments: 25
Kudos: 132





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hereforthehurts is BACK on brand :-) 
> 
> Some context: Mako protected Lin during a fight and gets injured. His wound becomes infected which leaves him sick. Lin and Kya takes care of him because they are his MOMS. 
> 
> Also, mild vomiting warning :-) enjoy some Mako whump !!! this child deserves the world and I will provide him that

Mako wakes up to his ribs _burning_.  
  
  
The pain all over his body was searing and sharp, as if he’d just been repeatedly stabbed by little needles everywhere. Yet he tries to sit up anyway, because his mind is screaming at him. _You can’t be here. You shouldn’t be here._ Something itchy was sticking on his left arm, and when he tried to grab it, someone grabbed on his other arm first.  
  
  
“Mako. Hey, kid, no - lay back. Don’t do that.”  
  
  
He didn’t know if he imagined it, but it is, surprisingly, his boss’ voice.  
  
  
_Lin’s_ voice.  
  
  
He frowns, hard. It feels like trying to see through murky swamp waters, and his head throbs even harder. _“What the fuck?”_ He tries to say, but what came out of him was a groan and a deep, painful cough. 

  
“Shit,” he hears Lin curse. “Kya? Kya, he’s awake.”  
  
  
_What? What the fuck?  
  
  
_The coughing wouldn’t stop. It’s becoming more and more painful every time he does it, but he can't stop. Tears slid down his eyes. Air refused to come into his lungs.  
  
“Mako. Mako, hey, kid, hey, it’s okay,” calloused hands rubbed back and forth on his bare skin, supporting him so he could sit up. That was how weak he was. “Try to breathe. You’re okay.”  
  
He isn’t. He feels _very_ far from okay. Chills ran down the back of his neck, spreading to the tip of his toes, and he’s so cold, he’s _so cold_ but it feels like there’s a fire burning inside him -  
  
  
  
  


  
A cold hand presses on his forehead. He leans into it and sobs.  
  
“Hey, _hey_ , okay. It’s okay, Mako. You’re safe.” A different voice, now, soft and soothing, like running water. “Don’t panic, okay? Breathe for me.”  
  
“ _Can’t,_ ” he writhes. Something’s clogging his throat, and his lungs wouldn’t let him breathe. The commotion causes his head to throb harder. He heaves into his lap instead.  
  
  
“Shit - okay. Okay.” The voice turns sharp. Mako instinctively tries to make himself small at that. “Lin, hold him up so he doesn’t choke.”  
  
“I have him,” Lin mutters on his side, holding on his shoulders as gently as she could, then repeats the words to him. “I’ve got you, kid.”  
  
He gags and coughs into a basin. Nothing comes up. In a long, painful while, there were only sounds of his dry heaves and the two women’s sympathetic hums.  
  
“‘M sorry,” he slurs when he’s done, pulling away from his hunching position. In his panicked, delirious state, he realizes that the police chief, his _fucking boss,_ is holding him as he throws up, and her wife was holding up the basin for him. His eyes widened. “I - I have to go - “  
  
A chorus of panicked _no’s_ filled the room as he tries to get out of bed. The cable attached to his wrist held him back.  
  
“No, no no _,_ Mako _stay,”_ a pair of electric blue eyes met him. “Sit. _Down_. You’re _not_ going anywhere.”  
  
Lin’s strong, sturdy arms gently pulled him back to bed, and he doesn't have the strength to fight her. “Kid, you’re panicking. Calm down. Try to breathe.”  
  
He shakes his head. He couldn't stop the pounding in his chest. _It hurts. He can’t stop it._  
_  
  
_Something wet and cold was pressed against his forehead once again. He whines.  
  
“Come on, Mako,” Kya murmurs to him, her hand running up and down his shoulder. “Relax. _Breathe_.”  
  
It takes a while. He doesn’t have anxiety attacks often, but when he does, he handles it terribly. Especially when he’s weak and sick and embarrassed out of his mind.  
  
  
  


He closes his eyes instead.  
  
  


  
  
The darkness was familiar and comforting to him, in some unexplainable way.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
The next time he woke up, he was leaning over on the side of the bed, an inch deep into a bucket and heaving up water and bile. Kya was in front of him, shushing him, holding his hair up. Lin's hand, he recognized, was patting him mildly on the back. 

This time, though, he had been too delirious to even be able to be embarrassed about it.

The two women in the room were talking in hushed tones - he couldn't make out what they were saying. When his heaves became dry, Lin pulls him back and gently laid him back down on the mattress, slicking his hair back. 

"Drink.”  
  
It sounded like a plea more than an order. A straw pressed against his lips - Mako didn’t realize how dry he was until something sweet and salty washed down his throat. He swallows the urge to throw it all up.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It’s dark outside, and it’s cold. White dots were falling from the sky.  
  
  
Lin pulls the covers up to his shoulders and tells him to close his eyes. He does.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Kya’s sobs pulls him back into the waking world.  
  
“I thought this would be easier,” she’s crying on his side, as if she was talking to him, but Mako has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about. “I thought - as long as it wasn’t _her…_ ”  
  
  
He shouldn’t be listening to this. He knows nobody has ever had anything good to say about him. He should go back to sleep.  
  
  
(He doesn’t.)  
  
  
“But it was you instead. And I don’t - I don’t know if this is harder or not.”  
  
  
Kya’s soft hands reached for the side of his forehead. Mako doesn’t know what he did to make her cry about him like this. She combs her fingers through his hair instead.  
  
  
His mother used to do that to him.  
  
  
“You’re so _young_ ,” her voice breaks. Hitched sobs flows out of her like a river. “You’re just a boy.”  
  
  
And he is.  
  
  
  
He always had been, even if he felt like he wasn’t.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
Fire. He dreams of the fire, flames consuming his surroundings alive.  
  
_Was it his fault? Was it his fault?_  
  
He’s dragging his baby brother out into the streets. Bolin was screaming.  
  
He wished he hadn’t looked back, but he did. The fire swallows everything that he had.  
  
  
  
  
  


He wakes up gasping for breaths. Tears squeezed out of his eyes. Everything burns. His brother, where is he? Where was his mother? Where is she? _Where is my mom?_  
  
  
A hand pushes his chest back. “Mako. Lay back. It’s okay.”  
  
  
It wasn’t. It wasn’t. In his dreams, he was looking for his mother. He keeps calling for her. He never found her.  
  
  
_Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom._ He stutters out those words as if it was all that he could say.  
  
“I know. Mako, I know. I - “ The hand tries to leave, he grabs on it with all the strength he has. _No. Please._  
  
  
The arms wrapped around him instead. He doesn’t mind it. “Right, it’s alright. I have you, kid. Lay back down.” Instead of the covers, he collapses on someone’s lap. He doesn’t mind it, either.  
  
“Don’t panic. Breathe for me.”  
  
  
  
_It burns. The fire burns. Where was his father? Where was his mother?_  
  
  
“I’m here. I’m here.” Harsh fingers ran over his hair, but the touch was as gentle as the snow falling outside. The voice was shushing him over and over.  
  
  
  
_Mom?_ He asks. _Mom?_  
  
“Mmhm,” the voice murmurs. “Close your eyes, Mako.”  
  
  
He does. Maybe the pain will go away if he does.  
  
  
  
  
  
The world goes quiet.  
  
  
“Spirits, Mako.” He hears a small, hitched sob. “ _Stupid boy_.”  
  
  
His mother used to say that to him. He’ll sit on her lap and she’d comb her fingers through her hair and say those words fondly over and over again. _Stupid boy._  
  
  
“Mom,” he mutters, dozing off in her lap.  
  
  
  
  
Quietly, Lin agrees.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uhmm I got A Little Bit carried away ..... I love them. I love them so much actually. 
> 
> ps: Yes, Toph wasn't a great mother. But yes, she tries to be. And in the end, they all apologized and both of her daughters forgave her and loved her anyway. That's some Beifong family feels for ya <3

Lin doesn’t know how the _hell_ she had let this happen.  
  
  
  
  
She has never been good at letting things go - always blaming herself here and there, no matter whether it was really her fault or not. It had been something she had been working on for quite a while. That not all mistakes were hers to carry.  
  
  
But this one?? This one is definitely on her.  
  
  
  
 _“You’re so young,”_ she had heard Kya whisper to the unconscious kid when she passed the room. _“You’re just a boy.”_  
  
  
And she was right. He is. Mako is just a boy.  
  
  
  
 _How did she let that happen?_ _How could she?  
  
  
  
_

 _  
_  
  
“You’re thinking, aren’t you?”  
  
Her wife brings her back into her surroundings. She’s sitting on their dinner table, feet tapping furiously onto the wooden floor while Kya stirs something on the stove. “Hmm. Yes.”  
  
“You’re gonna tell me what it’s about?”  
  
Lin doesn’t answer her. Instead, she says, “You’re cooking a lot for dinner.”  
  
She shrugs. “Might give the kid a try at some food. He can’t survive on only fluids for this long.”  
  
Lin winces. “Is he going to be okay?”  
  
Kya moves to sit down in front of her, pulling a chair out. For a scary moment, she doesn’t answer her. Lin had known her wife long enough to know that she’s calculating the risk of her white lies.  
  
Eventually, she sighs. “I don’t know, Lin.”  
  
Lin rubs on her temples tiredly. Her mind screams, _your fault. Your fault.  
  
_ “Is he dying?”  
  
Kya shook. “ _No_ , but… he’s not getting any better, either. I might have to ask my mother’s help.”  
  
“So he’s dying.”  
  
“ _Lin_ ,” she gave her the look. “Hey. I’m worried about him too, alright?”  
  
“I know.” Lin murmurs. “I’m sorry, I just - “  
  
“You’re blaming yourself.”  
  
 _She knows me too well._ “It doesn’t count as blaming myself it was my fault, is it?” Lin asks bitterly. “That boy jumped in front of me to shield _me_.”  
  
Kya reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. “I know. I know how it feels.”  
  
  
She kept her hand there for a while. Lin lets her.  
  


  
  
  
The sound of the fireplace crackling fills the silence between them.  
  


  
  
“Mako called me mom.”  
  
Kya laughs softly. “What did you say to him?”  
  
“I didn’t say anything. I just… agreed.” Lin swallows thickly. “I lied to him.”  
  
“Hmm,” Kya tilts her head, fondness dripping from her eyes when she watches her. “I don’t think you did.”  
  
  
  
Lin frowns.

  
  
“You love that boy, don’t you?”  
  
She couldn’t help but laugh dryly. “What, as a mother?”  
  
“Mmhm.”  
  
Her smile falters when she realizes that her wife wasn’t joking. “I… no. I mean, I don’t - I don’t know.”  
  
 _But I might. I might love him._  
  
“That’s okay,” Kya tells her softly. She gave her hand another tight squeeze before standing up, walking over towards the stove. Lin silently watches her.  
  
“I’m going to try to get him to eat,” She says, bringing a steaming bowl and a glass of water in her hands. “You should, too.”  
  
  


  
  
  
Lin doesn’t.  
  
  
  
  
  
Instead, she finds herself out on the front porch, inhaling the cigarette stuck between her fingers. She doesn’t smoke as often anymore, not after Kya scolded her everytime she does so - but sometimes, she needs it. To feel something. Some calm. Content.  
  
  
And spirits know she needs it tonight.  
  
  
  
She keeps her arms tucked inside each other, the freezing winter air turning her breaths into smoke. She closes her eyes when a particular hard breeze blows past her. The freezing was somehow so much better compared to the uncomfortable warmth inside her house.  
  
  
  
  
Mako’s calls kept echoing in her mind.  
  
 _Mom. Mom. Mom._  
  
  
 _He probably doesn’t mean anything by it,_ a part of her head chides her. _He’s dreaming, and delirious. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. You’re just looking too much into it.  
  
_ But why? Why was she looking so much into it?  
  
 _I lied to him,_ she lied once again, to Kya.  
  
But Kya sees through her. She always does.  
  
 _I don’t think you did.  
  
  
  
_ Lin inhales another breath. The nicotine doesn’t affect her as much as it used to.  
  
  
  
 _You love that boy, don’t you?  
  
What, as a mother? _  
  
  
Does she? Does she even know how to be a mother? Her own mother had done such a terrible job that she shuts down all possibilities of being a mother herself. _What if I become like her? I can’t become a mother. I can’t._  
  
  
And she leaves it at that. 

  
  
  
Lin sighs and looks up, leaning against a pillar. She watches the white dots of snow falling gently towards her before closing her eyes tight.  
  
  
  
Her sister did, though. To _five_ children, no less. 

  
  
  
She inhales sharply, pressing the cigarette on a pile of snow and discarded it into a nearby trash can.  
  
  
 _Shit.  
_  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“Lin?”  
  
She swallows thickly. “Is this a bad time?”  
  
“Well, it’s four in the morning here, but go on.”  
  
Lin winces. “I - I could call later, if that’s okay with you.” _What was she thinking? What was she thinking?_ “I’m hanging up, now.”  
  
“No, no, it’s fine,” Suyin yawns. “It's almost five. I was already up anyway, doing some yoga.”  
  
“Of course you are.”  
  
“Are you going to tell me why you’re calling me instead or sleeping?”  
  
“I - “ Her words got caught up in her throat. “I… I wanted to ask you how you did it.”  
  
“Did what?”  
  
“Become a mother.”  
  
A pregnant pause. Then Suyin’s voice, now a little bit amused. “Lin Beifong, am I going to be an aunt?”  
  
“No,” Lin says almost immediately, rolling her eyes. “I just - I was just wondering. How you did it, without, you know.” She rubs her arm uneasily. “Mom.”  
  
“I mean, we always did everything without mom.”  
  
“True,” she sighs. It felt like someone was poking on a wound of hers. “But - it must’ve been different. Being a mother. How did you… how did you do it?”  
  
“I just…” Suyin breathes. “I just _do._ I never think about it much - I never think about anything. You know that.”  
  
Lin couldn’t believe that she was wishing she could do the same. “Yeah.”  
  
“Yeah,” her sister agreed. “And - you know, mom and I forgave each other just before Opal was born. She held me while I gave birth to her, then to the twins. It’s… late, but - I still think it’s better than never.”  
  
 _Better than never._ She’d heard that phrase a thousand times in her life already.

  
  
  
_And it’s true._

  
  
“Are you thinking of something, Lin?” Suyin asks in amusement once again. “You’re always so mysterious, you know. I could never figure out what you’re up to.”  
  
Lin lets out a genuine laugh. “No. I was just… thinking.”  
  
“Thinking?”  
  
“Yes.” She shifts uneasily. “Su, you’re - you’re amazing.”  
  
  
  
Silence. _Fuck. Fuck. Did she really say that?_  
  
  
  
Lin shuts her eyes closed.  
  
  
Suyin bursts out _laughing_ instead. “What?”  
  
“I’m not saying it again.”  
  
“No, but... why? Lin, do you want something from me?”  
  
“No!” She exclaims, and her sister laughs even harder.  
  
“Then… why? Never in a million years I’d thought that sentence will ever come out of your mouth.”  
  
“You’d probably never thought that I’d be a mother to Mako either, but yet here we are.”  
  
A beat.  
  
“Lin?”  
  
 _Shit._  
  
Her sister’s voice softens. “Oh, Lin.”

  
Another moment of silence.

  
  
“Mako, huh?” Suyin finally spoke up. “He’s a good kid. Raised his brother well.”  
  
Lin sighs. “He is. He’s a great kid.”  
  
“What made you suddenly think of… _this?_ ”  
  
“It’s not _sudden,”_ she says defensively. The truth is, he’s grown attached to the boy for quite a while. “He’s been a detective under my wing for quite a while. And I - “ she swallows thickly, “I grew attached to him.”  
  
“I know how you feel,” Suyin says softly. “Kuvira was the same. And Bolin. They’re both my children, whether they liked it or not - but I think they do. Bolin called me mom one time.”  
  
Lin laughs quietly. “Mako did, too.”  
  
“What did you say?”  
  
“I... “ Lin shrugs. “I guess I lied.”  
  
“I don’t think you did.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
More silence. It’s storming, outside. The wind was howling.  
  
  


  
  
“He’s sick,” She finally says, “the kid.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“I’ve been taking care of him, me and Kya.” Lin swallows thickly. _It was my fault._ “He’s just a boy.”  
  
Suyin hums sympathetically. “They all are.”  
  
“Is it strange?” She wanted to sob. “That I feel like I want to hold him in my arms and never let him get hurt again?”  
  
“That’s what mothers feel, Lin.”  
  
“I’m not a mother.”  
  
“Well, then I guess you are, now.”  
  
  


  
  
A sob escapes out of her against her will. Suyin waits patiently for her.  
  
  


  
  
“I’m so scared, Su.”  
  
“I was, too.” Suyin whispers gently. “But it gets better. I promise. Love, you just - you just have to stop fighting it.”  
  
Lin exhales shakily. “I’m trying to.”  
  
“That’s all you need to do.”  
  
She lets out another breathy laugh. “You’re… you’re amazing, Su. I don’t - I don’t know what I’d do without you.”  
  
She could hear Suyin’s smile from hundreds of miles away. “Neither do I.”  
  
“Have we ever said it?” Lin asks. “ _I love you?_ ”  
  
Suyin laughs. “I never thought that it was your thing.”  
  
“It was never mom’s thing, either.” 

"It's not," Suyin agrees, "but she says it differently. Remember what she used to say, when we were little? Silly girl, or something.”  
  
“Stupid,” Lin corrects her. “She said stupid.”  
  
“Yeah,” She nodded. “She meant different things by it, though.”  
  
And Toph did. Lin didn’t want to admit it, but even when she was just a little girl, she knew her mother had meant different things when she said those words _._ She’d laugh at her whenever she does something clumsy or childish and ruffle her hair and say, _stupid girl.  
  
_ When Lin graduated from the police academy, top of her class, all she had done was smirk and pat her shoulder and say, _stupid girl_.

When she had gotten married, her mother arrived late into the scene only to tell her one thing; _I’m proud of you, stupid girl.  
  
_ And when Toph first started sending her letters again, ( _how,_ Lin doesn’t know) - the name written on the address had been _愚蠢的女孩_ _.  
  
  
  
_ Stupid girl.  
  
  
And Lin knows. Lin had always known that it was Toph’s way of saying _I love you.  
  
  
_ “I know,” Lin tells her sister.  
  
  
Maybe, she’ll be different from her mother. Maybe, she’ll finally learn how to say those words, _I love you.  
  
  
_

 _  
  
_But for now…  
  
“Bye, stupid.”  
  
Suyin laughs. “Bye to you, too, stupid.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Something heavy was lifted off her chest when she placed the phone back on the landline.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
Mako had mostly been breathless and gasping whenever he woke up.  
  
  
  
They’d been taking turns watching him while he’s sleeping, scared of what will happen if he wakes up and nobody was on his side. He murmurs in his sleep, restless and fevered out of his mind, and once in a while, he’d wake up screaming. All they could really do was hold him down and shush him and tell him to go back to sleep.  
  
  
 _He’s just a boy. They all are._  
  
  
  
And Lin finally gets it, how much Kya hurted whenever she gets injured. The pain of having to watch someone you love suffer....  
  


  
She promised to herself that she’s never going to make Kya go through this again.  
  
 _So that means you love him?_ A voice in her mind asks her.  
  
 _I might,_ Lin answers. “I might.”  
  
From her side, Kya frowns. “Might what?”  
  
“Love him,” Lin tells her, breaking her stare at Mako to look at her wife. “I think I do.”  
  
Kya smiles - proudly, fondly, she couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was all of it at the same time. “I think I do, too.”  
  
She held her hand.

Lin held her back.

  
  
  
  
  
The next time Mako woke up, she had been ready. He shot up so suddenly that it startled Lin herself. He’s crying, muttering something repeatedly as he looks around the room, as if he was looking for someone.  
  
“Mako. Hey, kid, _kid_ it’s okay,”  
  
She held him and tried to gently push him back down. “Mako. Lay back. It’s okay.”  
  
His breathing was choked and ragged, eyes wide, murmuring stuttered words. _Mom. Mom. Mom._ He was looking for his mother.  
  
“I know,” Lin whispers desperately, feeling her own heart break in half. “I know, Mako. I know.” _She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t do this._ “I’m going to - I - “  
  
He grabs on her wrist with all the strength he has left, eyes pleading, as if saying, _no, please._  
  
“Alright, Mako. It’s alright, I have you. Lay back down.” She settles him down, guiding him to her lap. “Don’t panic. Breathe for me.”  
  
Mako sobs into her shirt. Lin tugs the boy up, into her arms. “I’m here, I’m here.” She runs her fingers gently on his sweat-plastered bangs, shushing softly. “I’m here.”  
  
 _“Mom?”_ Mako asks, surprisingly coherent.  
  
“Mmhm,” Lin murmurs, and this time, it doesn’t feel like lying anymore. It felt more like accepting. 

_Love,_ Suyin said, _you just have to stop fighting it.  
  
_ “Close your eyes, Mako.”  
  
He does, tense body relaxing into her lap. His breaths gradually became softer with every passing second, with every hushed words of comfort. 

  
  
  
  
  
And Lin sobs.  
  
 _He’s just a boy. He’s her boy.  
_  
  
“Spirits, Mako,” she whispers softly. “ _Stupid boy.”_

  
 _  
  
_“Mom,” was all that he muttered out.  
  
  
  
And Lin quietly agrees.

  
  
  
_Yes. Yes I am._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 would be from Kya's perspective, to get the complete experience !! Thank you for reading and loving this idea as much as I do <3

**Author's Note:**

> More context: stupid boy/stupid child is a Chinise saying. It might sound like an insult to non-speakers, but it is in fact not !! it's often used by elderlies/older people to their younger counterparts affectionately, like for example, when they behave goofy/innocent, they'd say "stupid child" to express affection towards their behavior. 
> 
> Asian people rarely say "I love you" and I thought Lin would too, so I gave her that line instead ("stupid boy" both for protecting her in the fight then getting injured because of it AND for being her child). Usually, when elders say "stupid child" to their children/grandchildren who are no longer kids, it also could mean "you will always be my baby" :-)


End file.
